Feds say they'll act quicker to release study on keeping carp out of Great Lakes

The federal government says it will speed up a decision on how to protect the Great Lakes from invasive species in the Mississippi River basin. The Obama administration announced the new timetable Tuesday.

In the past the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers said it would take until 2015 to recommend a way to keep invasives like Asian carp from migrating into the Great Lakes. Under a new plan, the study would be complete by the end of 2013. It would present a number of options and how much each costs. Then lawmakers and the public could weigh in on the best option. Congress will have the authority to make a final choice.

Michigan and other Great Lakes states have sued the federal government, calling for a permanent split between the two watersheds. Michigan's Attorney General said he’d be willing to drop the case if the Army Corps of engineers' study got done quicker. His office says the new timetable is a step in the right direction but doesn't satisfy his concerns.

Scientists differ about how widely the carp would spread in the Great Lakes, but under worst-case scenarios they could severely damage the region's seven billion dollar fishing industry.

Scientists have found traces of carp DNA in Lake Michigan but no actual fish.

Michigan and other states want to permanently close the locks that seperate the Great Lakes from the Mississippi River. But that at would cut off shipping between the lakes and Chicago.

Attorneys general in the Great Lakes region want a multi-state campaign to cut an artificial link between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River watersheds that provides a pathway for invasive species.

In a letter obtained by The Associated Press, the attorneys general invite their counterparts in 27 other states to pressure the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for quicker action.

The Corps is studying whether to separate the drainage basins in the Chicago area, where they were joined more than a century ago by construction of a canal. Zebra and quagga mussels have used the waterway to invade states farther south, and the Asian carp is threatening to migrate into the Great Lakes.

The Corps report is due in 2015. The letter demands a faster timetable.